§1.1 Field of the Invention
This invention concerns the design of a battery powered, handheld air plasma spray for blood coagulation and sterilization applications.
§1.2 Background
Bleeding, even from an external hemorrhage, may be life threatening if it is not treated swiftly (See, e.g., the article: P. Jevon and L. Cooper, “First aid. Part 5. First-aid treatment for severe bleeding,” Nursing Times, 104, 26-27, 2005 (hereafter referred to as “the Jevon article”)). Most cases of bleeding occur under emergency situations. The treatment has to repair the cause of bleeding, relieve symptoms, and prevent complications. Thus, new methods and devices which can effectively stop bleeding are significant, and can help to save the life of an injured person, especially in battlefield situations (See, e.g., the article: USA Today, “Advanced first aid for troops sought,” A1, 14 Sep. 2009 (hereafter referred to as “the USA Today article”)).
Non-thermal atmospheric pressure air plasma can clot blood for bleeding control (See, e.g., the article: Spencer Kuo, “Air plasma for medical applications,” J. Biomed. Sci. Eng. (JBiSE), 5, 481-495, 2012 (hereafter referred to as “the Kuo article”). However, the present plasma devices designed for blood coagulation applications employ an AC source (e.g., 110V/60 Hz or 220V/50 Hz) for their operation, thus, these present devices are not useful for certain emergency situations.
A torch module described in the U.S. Pat. No. 7,777,151 B2 titled “Portable Plasma Sterilizer,” (“the '151 patent”) can be run in low frequency (e.g., 60 Hz) periodic mode to produce low temperature non-equilibrium air plasma. Based on the principle of this torch module, a battery powered handheld air plasma spray was designed, developed and successfully demonstrated. One of the applications is for blood bleeding control and the other is for sterilizing contaminated objects. The invention is lightweight, portable, and a handheld battery powered device, making the device easy to carry to the site of a serious mishap to treat wounds without having to move the injured.